you've got some serious hills to fill today is john kerry's first day as secretary of state but will he be able to curve the undergoing popularity of the u.s. in the middle east we'll explore the issues facing him and his new job. and true lies from torture to cyber surveillance the u.s. has proved its willing to use any and all methods to discover the truth but can the government trust its most basic machines that being lie detectors are to question more. and it's often called president obama's jewel of achievements during his first term i'm talking about health care reform but is obamacare actually the answer to the u.s. health care crisis a report on that coming up. it's

monday february fourth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you're watching r.t. today marks john kerry's first official day as the sixty eighth secretary of state and perhaps not a moment too soon topping secretary kerry's agenda is a push to restart peace talks between israelis and palestinians and in the immediate future he plans to address the volatile situations in egypt and also in north africa his appointment comes amid dropping u.s. approval ratings in the middle east something that hillary clinton addressed last week. some of the success is that being attributed to you is the mending fix in you know it's the it's relation with have been mostly more yet the statistics contradict that if you look at the pew set this it shows that actually your favorite is him in comparison the bush administration is lower and in countries like turkey usually than and other places so what is going wrong does that mean

that america's then in the in the in the word is on the received in that space to just being afflicted i think it's fair to say that the united states for the last decade has not been viewed favorably by a very high percentage of the people in any of the countries in the middle east or north africa for number of reasons some of it rooted of course in our strong support for israel over the many years of israel's existence as a state secondly i think that we have done and i take responsibility along with our entire government and our congress and perhaps our private sector we've not done a very good job in recent years reaching out in. a public. media way or in a culturally effective way to explain ourselves we in our efforts to

support democracy. still are held accountable for supporting the governments that were there before democracy we did business with other regimes and somehow that caused a lasting negativity toward us now in his own wars john kerry has big heels to fill since women have run the state department for the past two terms for a closer look at secretary kerry's first week in office are to international correspondent guy and can reports. as you can imagine the competition for diplomatic post is tough especially in safe and wealthy country somewhere in western europe and asia a recent study by two professors of international relations at pennsylvania state university looked at available information on president obama's donors direct political contributions and the position. put it that those whose political connections to president obama were measured in dollars worth of the administration service had an increased chance of representing the united states and western

europe and a smaller chance of serving in say central asia or sub-saharan africa donors and advisers involved in the diplomatic selection process see the competition this year has been sold high but those who have raised less than a million dollars are for the most part unlikely to be considered so what is the quote unquote price tag for the highly sought diplomatic posts according to this study friends and monaco topped the list with the level of personal contributions at six point two million dollars the price was quote unquote the price for a position in the u.k. the authors find appears to live between six hundred fifty thousand dollars and two point three million dollars a posting in luxembourg that tiny but very wealthy european country for example is valued as three point one million dollars dollars in direct contributions and appointment to portugal was predicted to have a value of around six hundred thousand dollars like all modern presidents before

him president obama has appointed friends and donors to about thirty percent of diplomatic posts while seventy percent of the posts go to career diplomats so judging by this research career diplomats go to places like yemen while big donors go to monaco nobody of course calls it bribery here and these are just respectable donors who get what they want when they pay the price this monday is john kerry's first work day at the same department for the next four years is going to be the country's top diplomat and this position is not to be the these are challenging times for u.s. foreign service u.s. embassies have come under attack in a number of countries in a number of muslim countries just within the last year the u.s. ambassador to libya was killed in september in benghazi shortly after the u.s. helped carry out wishing change there there's a said. of denial in washington that this rage against the americans in the muslim world has something to do was washington's policies in those countries the u.s.

has been very much invested in the middle east and north africa from what we heard during john kerry's confirmation hearing at the moment the administration is reluctant to get involved militarily in syria and it's also trying to play and play down the drums of war with iran but that may change very quickly because the u.s. still continues to threaten war with iran it's unclear whether john kerry's role would be as of secretary of state in supporting or stopping a war he likes to present himself as this anti-war politician but he's the same politician who voted to authorize the iraq invasion was no evidence at hand that you're right possessed weapons of mass destruction so john kerry has a mixed record and certainly big challenges ahead that was guyin a chicken with that report. the obama administration is in the process of quietly crafting new legislation to deal with lie detector tests including a rule to force interrogators to ask job applicants in the intelligence community

about leaking classified information this proposed draft comes in the wake of allegations that the federal agencies are blowing through legal and ethical boundaries during these security screenings now national intelligence director james clapper said that a polygraph inconsistency is were not an issue of the machines but our t.v. correspondent marina porton found that lie detectors aren't always as accurate as you might think. for more than three decades john sullivan worked as a polygraph examiner for america's central intelligence agency today the retired cia employee is offering some strong opinions about the nation's lie detector policy too many honest people are too many people who should be passing the tests aren't and there's no there's no accountability for the. last year more than seventy three thousand americans were reportedly were fired to

undergo polygraph tests in order to get or keep jobs with the federal government according to an investigation by mcclatchy newspapers a growing number of u.s. agents are asking employees and applicants intimate questions that extend way beyond the realm of national security probing matters such as sexual conduct financial matters and past personal related not a woman was pressured to talk about her experience being molested as a child and when the polar bear for said that he refused to go on with the interrogation he alleges that he was pressured to go back in and continue interrogating her a decade ago the national academies an organization advising washington on scientific matters urged the feds to stop using polygraph as a screening technique or your client just found that polygraphs aren't reliable enough to prevent innocent people from failing and deceptive candidates from

passing i think it's important to understand that the polygraph is not just. for screening it's an interrogation to when there's a question that they trip that leads to an indication the deception the drilling down in the additional questions that they get asked may well be quite intrusive over the past ten years. at least she's federal agencies including the n.s.a. and f.b.i. have reportedly continued or expanded their polygraph screening with nearly five million people having access to classified information washington maintains that polygraph testing is the most effective way from preventing secrets from being leaked risa ribicoff is an independent polygraph examiner and investigator who uses the polygraph program designed by homeland security she contends that it's ninety eight percent accurate i do think that there are some questions pertaining to some

emotional aspects and personal situations should not be included but i do understand why they are included on the basis of that the government needs to see how exactly what their breaking point is what are they willing to discuss what are they not willing to discuss however applicants who are denied a coveted position after failing a polygraph are prohibited from accessing the records of their arrogance ssion and are often barred from contesting the results or filing complaints in federal court in two thousand and four the cia veteran who conducted lie detector interrogations for thirty one years failed his own screening there was absolutely no question in my mind that the test was reading. this was a terrible test sullivan lost his security clearance and was denied a job with a federal contracting agency he claims his examiner falsified the results possible retribution for sullivan's book detailing america's polygraph system subs are

coming in for a polygraph test now are guilty until proven innocent and i think that's. a corruption and abuse of the process the obama administration is now promising to drop a new national polygraph policy that would prevent agencies from pushing legal or ethical boundaries during screening but at the moment the program has no oversight or accountability meaning tens of thousands of u.s. citizens will continue getting personally probed in the name of no. security green up or nine are key to your well polygraph tests might not be as accurate as you think to extract information from someone but apparently want to boarding as an either in an interview with n.b.c.'s meet the press u.s. defense secretary leon panetta and mit is that the u.s. could have found osama bin laden without using torture take a look you know order to put the puzzle of intelligence together. lead us to bin laden there was a lot of intelligence there were

a lot of pieces out there that were part of that puzzle yes some of it came from some of the tactics that were used at the time inter-glacial tactics that were used but the fact is we we put together most of that intelligence without having to resort to that this revelation by leon panetta brings a very serious question to light for instance how far is the u.s. willing to go to get the truth and is the american government willing to compromise its principles for the sake of national security interests well earlier i was joined by retired cia officer reglan mcgovern i asked him if he thought the torture tactics were necessary and if not why are we using them. well torture is never worked you know in two thousand and six when george bush first announced that enhanced interrogation techniques or what he called an alternative set of procedures was going to do the job and that same day the head of army intelligence got up across the potomac and said and i quote no good intelligence has ever come

from abusive interrogation techniques history shows that and the experience of the last five years hard years also shows that two thousand and six by just five two thousand and one he knows what he's talking about his whole career was based on interrogation techniques he was a three star general ok now so you don't get good information from torture now if you want beheading information man you know i have to concede torture works like a charm and that's exactly what they were focusing on early on they wanted people to tell them or to admit that al qaeda was connected with saddam hussein him before we invaded iraq sixty nine percent of the people the united states believe that saddam hussein had something to do with al qaeda and probably a role in nine eleven i'm going as a masterful propaganda technique but it was all based on confessions extracted by enhanced interrogation techniques or our friendly allies like the egyptians to whom

we sent a libyan defector home we couldn't get to could fast they got to confess and george bush used that on the seventh of october three days before congress voted for war against iran iraq so it's not and has a terrible business not polygraph test so what's the answer the answer is the traditional interrogation techniques that the f.b.i. has used forever you see it's a miss to think that the cia was ever involved in interrogations they weren't when nine eleven happened and bush asked tenet could he get some guys to do you know do the job you know the things that changed in all the. gloves are coming off of tennis if you're honest you see people like that all we have is a lie detector people who know what we can get a we know some alumni from from vietnam and so forget we get them and that's how the contractor business grew up and that's how people will great mostly contractors by the way in guantanamo were indoctrinated into these abusive take the ex which

once again did not yield accurate information all right so celeste which topics a little bit and one started talking about cyber warfare now i'm right now we have heard that the u.s. is ramping up its cyber security measures in a way that we've never seen before frankly and this comes during a sequester so they're ramping up certain areas and taking down other areas now what is the u.s. trying to achieve in is it achievable with that with cyber security at the moment you know reminds me of a bunch of adolescents with new toys you know cyber tori's you have a new cyber offensive as well as defensive capability hole headed by a general by the way named keith alexander who lied to his congressional supervisors in the house intelligence committee when rush holt asked him are you

spying on americans poor keith alexander no one told him that the new york times was going to publish the story that yes they were is no no no no question that i would never shop was very very upset about that because that's a felony that's a felony he's the guy that's not only running the national security agency he's running the new cybersecurity profits of capability so what i'm saying here is integrity counts and if you get this kind of people running our cyber security well these toys are going to be used in a way that americans probably don't wish them to be used now the first time that we saw something really dramatic happen and that cyber world was really way. that's stuxnet and iran and we were supposed to find out about that but we did now do you want if you have to in order for a president to go to war they have to get the approval of congress normally but when it comes to cyber aggressions they don't need that approval similar to the way that they don't need approval with drone strikes it's just

a way for the president to get around or for not just president obama but for future presidents they're going to around the idea of war without actually going to congress. well i have to admit that if we have a president who violates the fifth abetment no person shall be deprived of life liberty or property without due process and assassinating americans abroad we have a president who is actually eavesdropping on americans and all that that is being stored up and then the law doesn't seem to make make a big bit of difference what i what i'm sick what i'm worried about and i'm an expert in this field but i've seen this before we have new capabilities back thirty forty years ago people are thinking about putting nuclear weapons in space ok well you know the americans and the russians got to give the can a this really makes sense you know let's let's do a treaty a still a treaty that we can verify and this not put nuclear weapons in space the same with cyber security we should talk about these things because it's

a level playing field where you know obviously the face of war is changing quite dramatically but we do need to switch topics just one more time though something i have to ask you about colin powell that anniversary the tenth anniversary of him going to the united nations and talking about weapons of mass destruction in tomorrow what kind of legacy are we learning from colin powell and from the u.s. intelligence agency coming out now. well that was a very sad performance or we could tell that even if part of what he said was true that was no reason to go to war with iraq the war going to war was decided first in the intelligence was manufactured so that fabricated actually jay rockefeller the head of the senate intelligence committee said that the intelligence was uncorroborated contradicted or even nonexistent but we only have about a minute i'm in the south i have to ask you what role did colin powell play well he

was a willing participant in this charade how much he knew about the lies is really the jury. out on that and he knew enough to be very suspicious but this curveball character the fellow who talked about the biological weapons labs you know remember those board just renderings and all that it looks like the head of the cia george tenet and his deputy john mclaughlin really really just powerline that there's lots of circumstantial evidence that's occasions come out recently say that he was a condo not a con man necessarily says well yeah i think come around to thinking that he was more conned than con man at least on curveball ray mcgovern thank you so much for us for your time sir are you most welcome national security issues aside president obama also faced a host of social concerns back home recently on the least of which is the implementation of obamacare now despite the supreme court's ruling last summer the act is no less controversial than it was passed when it was passed back in two

thousand and ten and has divided the nation's politicians patients and as our to correspondent liz wahl shows us even as doctors. most of them believe they'll have real stress points on the emergency room and their primary care practices less than a year until president obama's landmark health care reform law goes in full effect uncertainties plague the medical community we saw this in massachusetts that when they expanded coverage the emergency rooms and the primary care practices had long wait times to see positions if you're one of the more than two hundred fifty million americans who are to have health insurance you will keep your health insurance what worries physicians is the thirty million people that don't have insurance who will come january first two thousand and fourteen some fear the influx of newly insured people will flock to get medical care and there won't be

enough doctors to meet the demand in fact the majority of physicians are unhappy with obamacare this according to jackson and kolker a prominent position staffing firm when asked how they feel about the affordable care act fifty five percent of those polled said it should be repealed and replaced forty percent said implement and improve insurance companies can no longer impose lifetime limits on the amount of care you receive. they can no longer discriminate against children with preexisting conditions they can no longer drop your coverage if you get sick most americans agree with those measures eighty two percent according to a reuters poll it's the individual mandate that gets controversial this mandate makes it easy legal to be uninsured come to new year the supreme court up held the constitutionality of the mandate in june of two thousand and twelve now how will people get their health care coverage each state will take the lead in designing

their own menu of options he is referring to the health care exchanges states are required to set up their basically online marketplaces where consumers shop for the best health care plan can afford it the government will help you in the form of a subsidy the problem is at least twenty five governors have refused to set them up why some governors many of them republican say their questions have gone unanswered by washington in the end they couldn't answer our questions and to go on to something that's this vast of an enterprise and i have so many things unanswered and i will you tell us how much it's going to cost or how much control we're going to have. and yet they want me to just sign on to it by december fourteenth well that's where operate now will be up to the federal government to set up the exchanges in these states whether it's the states or the feds that sets up the system tens of millions of new patients stands a benefit the medical experts are already predicting a physician shortage in the us of an estimated ninety thousand in the coming years

when you look at the number of physicians that are currently practicing we probably peaked in two thousand and seventeen and. after that point we're actually not replacing the number that we and to supply will retire all sides that overhauling the nation's health care system will be no easy feat especially when so many of. and states aren't liking what the federal government has prescribed in washington liz wahl r.t. now why is criticism of obamacare comes after a glitch was discovered in bedded deep in the writing of the law essentially thousands of families could become uninsured if the employer's coverage is too expensive and if they're also unable to receive financial assistance from the government to buy private health insurance of their own now earlier i was joined by dean clancy he's the vice president for public policy for freedom works i asked him

for further explanation on some of the glitches and how they're becoming more common in obamacare. it's not really a glitch because it was intended by congress but this is what happens when the government tries to take over health care it becomes massively complicated and all kinds of things happen that nobody expected they told us we'd have to pass the bill to find out what was in it and now we're finding out and one of the things is that . basically a lot of people who are low income workers in companies around the country that offer the company offers insurance but the workers don't find it affordable they're not going to be able to get subsidies in these government run exchanges where obamacare is subsidies are available so the bottom line is they wrote the law in a way to save money and to try to keep employers from dumping their employees into the exchanges such that a lot of people are simply not going to get those subsidies and they're not going to be able to afford the employer's health insurance benefit so by saving up my ass

some people are going to be inevitably cut off and i understand that they won't face the tax penalty for not having health insurance is that correct no i think they will face the tax penalty and i think that's the complaint that they will be treated as if. they're uninsured when in fact by their lights they can't afford it this is what happens when your government tries to tell people what to do it's forcing individuals to buy insurance forcing employers to offer insurance but then it has to define the insurance and what's affordable and if it's not affordable what happens then it's creating a government run exchanges the whole thing is a big mess and that's why groups like mine freedom works we argue that we need to start over we need a patient centered system not a government run system sure now also new as the republicans are threatening the i.r.s. to subpoena the i.r.s. for documents dealing with claims that the obama administration improperly expanded

the availability of subsidies under the health care overhaul so what could we possibly hope to. but for something like that's what quit possibly get out of these documents and well it's important because there is another problem in the law not a glitch but basically a choice of congress that said if a state sets up one of these government exchanges then the federal premium subsidy money can be available to people who go into the exchange if the state does not set up an exchange then the federal government can come in and set up an exchange but the way the law is drafted it's very clear those subsidies are not available to people in a federally run exchange the obama administration says well that's not what we men we meant that you'd get the money whether the feds of the state set up the exchange there's a lawsuit coming out of oklahoma to test this is called pruitt versus a bail us and we believe that oklahoma is right that only the state run exchange

can get the subsidies what does this mean it means that in the twenty five states where governors or legislatures have said no we're not setting up an exchange there will be no obamacare subsidies in that state as a result the individual mandate won't work and the employer mandate also won't work that means that obamacare won't happen in half the country the i.r.s. is saying well you know we don't want to follow the law as written the republicans in congress are saying well show us the documents of where you got this new interpretation so obviously there's a lot of criticism coming out about obamacare it's been there for years really but i have to ask is there going to come a time when we just need to say enough is enough it's time to move forward i mean the house of representatives last year alone voted thirty three times to try to repeal obamacare and it wasn't done meanwhile a slew of other issues everything ranging from domestic violence violence bill to it to the fiscal problems were kind of put on hold because of this so is there ever going to be a time when we say enough is enough. well the problem is that the government can't

do a good job with our health care and the american people have never supported this bill a majority of oppose it ever since it was first on veiled in the spring of two thousand and nine we're now five years later people still oppose it it's not going to work so i'm glad frankly that tea party activists conservative republicans are still fighting this thing basically the goal now is after getting the states to block the exchanges and as we mentioned half the union is done that forced congress to reopen the law to delay the implementation of this law for an at least another year and let's try to fix these problems these glitches as they've been described and in doing that come up with a better system a system where patients decide what their health care should be this idea that we should just move on only makes sense if the law is basically acceptable and. we have about one minute left and messed up but i do want to quickly bring up there

are parts of obamacare that are very very popular with things like i'm children getting health care intellect twenty six no discrimination for people with preexisting conditions right so is there any part of health care that you agree with and also i have to quickly ask you if. the un popularity due to a misunderstanding perhaps no i think the american people understand what's in this bill even though it's very big very complicated that's one of the things they understand yes there are some mandates in there that sound great but did you know that for example that law that says that you have to cover your own children on your plan till they're twenty six if they want that costs everybody about four hundred dollars a year more on their health insurance premiums even people who don't have any children so none of this comes for free the market works better than the government freedom works government doesn't work as well and that's why we want real patient centered reform we'll have to see how this all kind of plays out in the future harris the republicans can actually get some for.